조지 베나블스 버넌(1735-1813)

By 1767, Thomas Gainsborough had settled in Bath, the spa town where fashionable England came to take the waters, and he was the portraitist they lined up for. He painted them the way they wanted to be seen: at ease, outdoors, a little Van Dyck grandeur softened into country leisure. Here George Venables Vernon, heir to the Vernon barony and a keen hunting man, leans against a tree in his greatcoat and tricorn hat while his dog reaches up against his chest. The picture had a rough afterlife. It was later built into the panelling of the saloon at the family seat, Sudbury Hall, and a strip of canvas was stitched to the bottom to stretch it to the height of the full-length portraits beside it. Only recently did Southampton's gallery take that addition off and return the painting to the size Gainsborough gave it.